The MINI, a small car, unique in its design is “not normal” in appearance compared to traditional cars. The car maker wanted to capitalise on the fact that it is different and created a marketing campaign around being “not normal”. MINI used the BuzzFeed platform to launch the campaign using a native content marketing strategy.
Case study summary
• MINI’s first collaboration with media platform BuzzFeed was such a success that they decided to further develop their “not normal” campaign
• The car brand created content for the media platform based on the theme of things which are “not normal”
• For readers who were exposed to the campaign their intent to purchase increased by 20.4%
The challenge
MINI and BuzzFeed previously collaborated in 2012, when MINI launched custom social posts on the media platform with the slogan “not normal”. The campaign was a huge success so MINI wanted to build on this and continue to raise awareness of its “not normal” slogan.
The solution
In order to engage with BuzzFeed’s audience and enhance MINI’s perception as a fun brand MINI created content for BuzzFeed on the topic of things which are “not normal”.
As the previous social posts boosted engagement, MINI created new custom social articles challenging readers to rethink “normal” and discover how amazing “not normal” can be.
A vast array of topics was covered in the articles, including: “13 cities with the strangest names”, “10 not normal phenomena that actually exist”, “9 people that dare to dress not normally” and “13 everyday things with not normal names”. This fun theme mirrors MINI’s tone of voice and is right t for BuzzFeed’s audience.
Results
The new content had over 1 million engagements, two thirds of which were from social media sharing. As the content was so popular it was featured in the right rail of news post pages on BuzzFeed which gave it even greater exposure, momentum and page views.
The campaign’s engagement goal to enhance brand perception was exceeded with a 52% increase in brand lift, with readers more likely to state that MINI is a fun brand, and 20.4% of readers who were exposed to the campaign said they would consider MINI as their next purchase vehicle.
